TORONTO – Canada’s Intelligence Service warns that climate change poses a profound and continuing threat to national security and prosperity, including the possible loss of parts of British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces to rising sea levels. 

A recently published analysis by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) also predicts an increase in ideologically motivated violent extremism from people who want to initiate solutions to climate change and those who are more interested in preserving their current style of life.

The brief — prepared in April 2021 but only recently disclosed via The Canadian Press in response to an access to information request filed in October of that year — finds that the retreating ice cover of the Arctic shows navigation routine of the Northwest Passage and the extraction of oil and mineral deposits in the region could become more economically viable. “The competition for control of the Arctic is likely to intensify. There will be a growing risk from significant Russian military activity and a growing Chinese presence in this vital region”.

Rising waters could also cause the irreparable loss of infrastructure and even entire communities along the coasts, warns the CSIS, particularly – as we said – in British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces.

Among other impacts, CSIS predicts the following: Biodiversity and habitat loss, coupled with environmental change, will see people interacting more with wildlife, increasing the risk of animal-borne disease transmission to humans and possibly pandemics more frequent; arable lands will be lost to pollution, human use and desertification, straining agricultural resources; freshwater resources will shrink due to environmental degradation and the impressions of climate change at a time when they will be increasingly needed; human migration could grow to an unprecedented volume due to new uninhabitable territories, extreme weather events, droughts and food shortages, and areas of human conflict.

“Canada is likely to be seen as a desirable location for future immigration flows, not only because of its stable economy and basic rights and freedoms, but also because of its significant freshwater and agricultural supplies and the vast territory it offers options for mass transfer”.

Collectively, climate change will undermine critical global infrastructure, threaten health and safety, create new scarcity and spur global competition, and could open the door to regional or international conflict, the CSIS report said. “And no country will be immune from climate change or its associated risks”.

Pic by Tobias Rademacher from Unsplash